Some things don't get better, only worse

[cosmolinguist]

My mom is watching her dad slowly lose his mind.

He was diagnosed with dementia almost a year ago. The doctors said that without treatment—which he refused—he would be in very bad shape by the end of this summer.

Summer has ended now.

He was still more or less all right when I last saw him in June. Despite hints that something was obviously wrong, he was still mostly the person I've always known.

All I know about his condition these days is what I get in semi-coherent e-mail from my mom. She never writes more than a couple of sentences about any one thing, so reading through the e-mails for a specific subject is sort of like reading a bunch of telegrams.

"His mind is really slipping at times now. It bothers me to see that the loss is happening more all the time. He is so money hungry and wants to sell everything for money."

"Grandpa¹ hasn't been doing well. You can really see changes and some days are worse then others. He wants to sell everything for money. Money being so important right now. Poor Grandma has to watch all the time. He does a little woodworking² but for very short times and the product isn't very good. He is very antsy and angers faster then before."

"I just don't know if I can go through watching Grandpa lose his mind. Last weekend was the first that it really started showing."

For my family, this is a great outpouring of emotion. I feel so bad for her. I can't imagine watching this sort of thing happen to my parents.

I spent so much time with my grandparents growing up (they only live about 20 miles away), they're connected to many good things in my life. I've surprised myself with how much I've missed them since I've been gone, and I imagine part of that is due to my grandpa's current situation. I can't help feeling bad for not being there.

---

¹ I just noticed that she still uses the last name to differentiate them, even though my other grandpa died two years ago...

² He used to make great things out of wood. One of my favorite childhood memories is of a giant box sitting under the tree one Christmas Eve when I was six or eight or so. It caught all my cousins' attention, as big boxes always do for little kids, but it had my name on it. I was so excited I couldn't take my nap that afternoon, I just couldn't calm down. The box turned out to contain a dollhouse that my grandpa had made of wood, with shingles and windows and a porch and bathroom fixtures and everything. My grandma bought a doll family and some furniture for it, and crocheted rugs for the floors. I was so impressed. Not usually one for "girl toys" and dolls and things, I still loved that dollhouse. I marvelled at all the little bits. He went on to make others, and he got more skilled as he did them so they may have been fancier, but I always liked my orginal copy.

Comments

[cake-o-rama.livejournal.com]

weird, I just read this as I was remembering a doll bed my grandaddy made for me when I was a little girl, I think the sweetest part is that he's a urologist and basically an asshole and about the least handy feller I know. I knew even at 7 years old to be touched by the gesture and still am. He's also holding up entirely too well losing his first born this week...I think I'll call him. Well, except that it's 2:30 in the morning...why the hell is everyone awake?! Do you still have the dollhouse?

[cosmolinguist]

I'm allowed to be awake; it's 8:30 here. :-)

The dollhouse is still in the basement of my parents' house, where it always was (there wasn't ever really a place for it in my tiny bedroom, so I played with it downstairs). I saw it a while ago when I was looking for something else, and smiled. My mom may have an odd idea about what constitutes things of sentimental value that should be saved, but sometimes she gets it right. And this is an obvious thing. I remember even at the time my parents saying "This is a good, sturdy dollhouse." It is, of course; it replaced my barely-remembered first dollhouse, the one with hinges and a handle that was made of plastic in some obnoxious color like yellow or pink.

I always think to call people when it's the middle of the night, too. Somehow, I rarely seem to get around it during people's waking hours, which is a shame.

[cake-o-rama.livejournal.com]

I think I'm even sadder because I suspect he's actually probably awake...

Here's a good present for you though, I was just downloading this particular picture on my new computer here, to my horror it wasn't in my Pictures of Fabulous Things...I think you'll appreciate this.

My best friend Big Mama has accused me of quitting my job to stay home and drool over this all day (okay, she didn't say drool!)
http://www.murmurs.com/talk/showthread.php?t=59919

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

spent so much time with my grandparents growing up (they only live about 20 miles away)

It certainly is a telling view of how the world has changed, that now having family live 'only' 20 miles away is very near.

[etoilepb.livejournal.com]

It's hard. It's really, really hard. My mom's father died of Alzheimer's about a year and a half ago (that long!), but in a way it was a big relief when he died. It's so hard to watch someone's mind just go like that. It accelerated very rapidly with him, though -- at Thanksgiving he still mostly knew who everyone was, and at Christmas he was wandering around the house in his coat and gloves, unable to string a coherent sentence together or to understand that he should sit down and eat.

The diseases that take a mind are the vicious ones, and they are probably the only ones that are worse for the people surrounding the person who has them than they are for that person directly. They're scary and sad and made all the worse by the fact that there's simply not anything you can do.

So I'm very sorry for your family, especially for your mom and grandma, because it's very hard to go through all that. And I wish there were something someone could say or do that would make it really better but, well, there's not.

(And on the footnotes: my grandfathers died about 14 months apart, and during that time it was very regular for my parents to use my living grandfather's last name to differentiate, too. Also my grandfather that died of Alzheimer's used to do great stuff with his hands, woodworking and the like. The Christmas before he died my grandma gave me the last wine glass he ever etched for a christmas present. It's got a sailboat on.)

[cosmolinguist]

The diseases that take a mind are the vicious ones, and they are probably the only ones that are worse for the people surrounding the person who has them than they are for that person directly.

In the entry I linked to, there's a lot of stuff like that. My other grandpa had Alzheimer's, so my family knows all about how this goes. With him, it was agonizingly slow: gradual enough that you almost didn't notice it, or could pretend to ignore it, at first. And then getting worse and then just staying that way for a long time.

He died about a month before my other grandpa found out he had dementia which I'm sure makes my mom (who did a lot of the "grunt work" for my dad's parents when they were ill) see this as an unending string of deterioration. Which is is, of course, so she can't be blamed for that, but it wears you down so much. And my mom is not really the most optimistic person even at the best of times.

Thank you for your sympathies; I know there are no words but it sounds like you've had similar-enough experiences that you can hardly help but understand. :-) It's a shame that such bad things happen on such a consistent basis to so many people that we identify with the stories of people we barely know otherwise ... but it's good to have people to talk to, even if there's nothing to say.

[irkthepurist.livejournal.com]

i feel for you - my granny had senile dementia for about ten years and it wasn't easy for anyone. huge hugs for it...

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

[nibbles ear] That must be really hard on your mom.